Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016186
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016186
This massive L-shaped tower overlooks the valley of the Kale Water. It was surrounded by an earth and stone rampart, now no more than 1.5 m high, and formerly bounded by a ditch.
The English attacked Cessford in 1519 and again in 1523 when the Earl of Surrey, with eleven cannon, considered it the third strongest castle in Scotland. It was taken only when its absent owner, Sir Andrew Ker, Warden of the Marches, returned and simply handed it over. In further English invasions in 1543 and 1544 it was burnt; it remains, however, one of the few castles in this area to have escaped entire destruction (Hermitage is another: no. 39).
The tower had two entrances. A ground-level doorway in the east wall of the main block was sheltered by a 'false' barbican enclosing the re-entrant angle of the L, and was covered by two gun-loops in the north wall of the wing (the 'real' defensive barbican ran between the two ruinous outbuildings adjoining the rampart northeast of the tower). Almost directly above, but in the wing, a second entrance must have been reached by a wooden ladder to a projecting landing. It was protected by an iron yett opening inward and a thick wooden outer door opening on to the landing. The lowest parts of the wing contained a vaulted prison with a vaulted and entilated but unlit pit prison below; at first-floor level was the kitchen, adjacent to the main hall with a 15th (possibly 14th) century fireplace and intra-mural chambers once safely reached by a turnpike stair within the wall at the re-entrant angle.
The main tower rose three storeys to the wall-head; the wing, four storeys within the same height (cfNeidpath: no. 38) with a further two storeys above, both of which may have been built (or rebuilt) in the 16th century. The comparatively thin walls of these upper storeys, now fallen, were raised on the inner faces of massive 4.3 m thick lower walls, so that the sloping roof dropped over the upper wall-head to the outer edges of the thicker wall below-a most unusual feature. A further feature are the many huge, finelyjointed corner stones up to 1.5 m by 0.6 m by 0.3 m. A castle, however, to be viewed with care!
Information from 'Exploring Scotland's Heritage: Lothian and Borders', (1985).
